Wednesday, 25 June 2014

For those who are accustomed to inscriptions by Pallavas, Cholas,
Pandyas, Hoysala and Vijayanagar and Nayaks, here is an Tamil inscription by an
Englishman, Francis Whyte Ellis, who at the time was employed by the East India
Company as Mint Supervisor in Madras. This stone slab was inscribed on a well
in Madras. Ellis was somewhat forgotten, until recently rediscovered by Thomas
Trautmann. The text below is taken from Mr Narasiah’s book மதராசபட்டினம். A photo of this slab is also found in Mr
Trautmann’s book, எல்லிசும் திராவிடச்சான்றும், a translation of his book ‘Ellis and the Dravidian Proof’.

The slab lay somewhat neglected in the Tirumalai Nayak Mahal
Museum, in Madurai, until Mr Narasiah pointed out its importance and that of
Ellis, upon which they had it mounted in its current place. In March this year,
Mr Narasiah showed me around the Mahal, and you see a photo of him, and two wonderful
museum officials (whom Mr Narasiah mesmerized with his detailed knowledge of
the Mahal) with the slab that has Ellis’ inscription.

Museum officials, me, Narasiah

Narasiah pointing to line மயிலையம்பதியான்

Here's my simple translation of the later portion of the inscription.
I’ll present the earlier portion of the inscription and my translation in a
later blog.

சயங்கொண்ட தொண்டிய சாணுறு
நாடெனும்

In Jayamkonda Thondiya Naadu (north Tamil Nadu, with Kanchipuram
as capital, was called Thondai Naadu from the Sangam era. When the Cholas
conquered it around 900 AD, they renamed it Jayam Konda Mandalam.)

ஆழியில் இழைத்த வழகுறு மாமணி

குணகடன் முதலாக குட கடலளவு

நெடுநிலம் தாழ நிமிர்ந்திடு
சென்னப்

from western hills to eastern sea, like a jewel in the ocean, lies
the city of Chennai pattanam

பட்டணத்து எல்லீசன் என்பவன்
யானே

in which, I Elleesan, (Tamilization of Ellis!) reside

பண்டாரகாரிய பாரம் சுமக்கையில்

While employed as Mint Supervisor

புலவர்கள் பெருமான் மயிலையம்
பதியான்

தெய்வப் புலமைத் திருவள்ளுவனார்

திருக்குறள் தன்னில் திருவுளம்
பற்றிய்

As the divine poet Thiruvalluvar, of Mayilai Ampathi (Mylapore),
famous for poets, in his Thirukural has stated

I love the phrase ஆழியில் இழைத்த வழகுறு மாமணி. I cannot imagine a more beautiful phrase
to describe any city, and how fitting that it was coined by a man, who proudly
called himself Chennai Pattinaththu Elleesan.

Saturday, 14 June 2014

We all
grew up with the story that James Watt watched a tea kettle boil and invented
the steam engine. Rarely do we wonder why the Chinese tea makers never invented
a steam engine. In school books, we also read Faraday discovered electricity or that
Thomas Edison invented the light bulb. Even those of us who study physics or
engineering later, rarely wonder why Faraday did not invent the light bulb. The
nerdier, and more widely read people, know how vital Nikola Tesla’s experiments
with Alternating Current were to the modern electrical world.

Of late,
Tesla versus Edison has become a cult battle, with “kind, brilliant, public spirited”
Tesla who wanted to make electricity free for the whole world winning hearts over
cunning, capitalist, greedy, jealous, stubborn Edison, the latter approaching
Voldemort in his villainy. Ungrateful world. Imbecile too, in its ignorance of
basic economics. I would strongly recommend Vaclav Smil’s “Creating the Twentieth
Century” to get a more realistic (and less cartoonish) perspective.

But
today June 13, is Charles Algernon Parsons’ birthday, and since he is almost
completely unknown to all but mechanical engineers, I’ll explain his vital role
in making the modern world.

Edison
invented the Electric Age (not just a working light bulb), the Spirit of
Invention, the Corporate Research Lab, the Phonograph, ad infinitum. I rate
Edison as the Man with the greatest impact and transformation of human history
and civilization; not just the greatest inventor or engineer. The ones who
surpassed him were the inventors of
Fire, Wheel, Agriculture, Cotton etc. whose names are lost in the mists
of time. Energy and Transportation

Edison
massively influenced Energy but not Transportation. James Watt’s steam engine influenced
both, and there would be no Electric Age without steam engines – as coal fired
power plants.

So did
Parsons – his turbines are vital:

For
electric power – 75% of the world’s power is generated by steam turbines in
coal and nuclear power plants.

Engines
versus Turbines

Not
being a mechanical engineer, and not having read much on engineering until
recently, I didn't properly understand the difference between engines and
turbines, and how much more efficient the latter are, until I read Vaclav Smil’s
book Creating the Twentieth Century. And
I did not realize how vital turbines are until I read his other book Prime Movers of Globalization – here is
Bill Gates’ somewhat concise review.

James
Watt did not invent the steam engine. Others like Savery and Newcomen made
working steam engines before him. Watt’s great breakthrough was to devise anexternal condenser, which made the steam engine efficient and useful, and to
invent several instruments which helped to incrementally improve the steam
engine. Also Watt build stationary steam engines, which replace water mills as
power sources in factories. He never built a steam locomotive, as in railways.

Richard Trevithick, George Stephenson and others increased it’s mass/power output ratio, leading to
railways and cheap transportation as we know it. But these are reciprocating
engines and still use steam power inefficiently. Water turbines existed in the
1830s, and in 1882 Gustaf Patrick de Laval made an impulse steam turbine. But Parsons,
in 1885, made a small machine producing 7.5KW. When Edison dazzled the US with
his Electric Lighting in 1879, he used a steam engine to generate power. As
Smil rightly notes, it is the total design and planning of the electrical system needed to bring electric lighting, that was Edison’s giant
transformation of the world. Edison’s use of DC, Tesla’s advocacy of AC,
Westinghouse’s triumph are well known to those who know the history of electricity.
But Parsons’ role, and the role of steam turbines is not properly understood or
even unknown.

Alternating
current is what enables cheap distribution of electricity. Without AC (or
transformers), we would need power plants every few miles. Imagine the pollution,
the logistics, the cost!

The
Parsons Turbines

But AC
only improves distribution, not the production of power. Here Tesla’s role
ends.

Early
steam engines produced very little
power for the amount of coal used. Steam turbines
not only delivered more power, but massively improved the output per amount of
coal used, as this table shows. Steam engines between 1890 and 1904 showed
maximum thermal efficiency of 11-17%. It made no sense, economic or engineering,
to install steam engines, rather than turbines, after 1902.

Year

Turbine Power in KW

Efficiency in %

1885

7

1.6

1888

75

5.0

1899

1000

25.0

1912

2500

75.0

This blog mainly outlines the impact of Parsons' improvements to turbine design and manufacture and their critical importance to the modern world. For more details on the engineering aspects of his work, and a brief biography, please read this.I had earlier blogged in Tamil about Vaclav Smil on Edison.

Wednesday, 11 June 2014

We think
of epics, poems, grand novels, perhaps great plays, as literature. The earliest
literature was usually oral and set down in writing, after writing was
invented. Of the world’s 6000 languages, very few have a script, even fewer boast of written literature, and barely
a dozen are classical. The globalizations of paper, and literacy, and most recently, computers, have given rise to new forms of writing, and new versions of
literature.

Detective stories, science fiction, comics, newspaper essays are the
great new forms of literature of the last 200 years. Advertisements and
roadside banners will someday be stride the worlds of literature and art. In a speech,Tiruppur
Krishnan, editor of the magazine AmudhaSurabhi, lauded the Question and Answer section in Tamil magazines as a
form of literature.

SMS, blogs and tweets, the latest entrants to the field of writing, are often criticized as ruining the felicity, grammar and spelling of languages; but some are already more famous
than most books, poems, plays or speeches.

I
propose PowerPoint presentations as a form of literature. Specifically, the
works of Swaminathan, retired IIT Delhi professor and founder of the Tamil
Heritage Trust.

Most
Powerpoints are a slapdash of ideas, themes, photos, doodles, graphs and
tables. They are meant to be supplement the speaker, or his message. They
seem primarily a business tool or a teaching aid. Rarely are they works of art,
to be savored for themselves. This is where I believe Prof Swaminathan’s PowerPoint presentations stand out.

TopicThey are about art, language,
culture, heritage, history. Not business or technical education.

Structure They have an introduction, a
theme, sections, and a flow of narrative.

PurposeThey are meant to inspire you to
discover what they discuss, perhaps visit the monuments described, or the
history narrated or in some way get involved in the subject.

ElegancePhotos, words, numbers, tables
are presented in an elegant, inherently beautiful way. In the last few years I
have learn something about the use of space in an artistic composition, its tone
and balance. He uses space superbly and there is an inherent balance to the
slides. The choice of colors for the text, the location of a photo, what
feature is highlighted, and how each aspect is explained is marvelous. I’ll
explain below with images.

UsageHere is the killer touch. Unlike
most PowerPoints, you can go through them on your computer, without his
assistance or commentary, because they are complete and self-explanatory.

It is in
these two aspects, Elegance and Usage, that I believe his presentations
transcend the plane of ordinariness and ascend to literature.

Take this slide, from his presentation on Indian Musical Heritage. He has compactly represented the Sa Ri Ga Ma Pa Da Ni Sa notes with first letters, in upper case. By subtly using lower case letters, he has also shown that there are 12 svaras, not 7 in Carnatic music, 5 of which are considered slight variations. A touch of grace is added by the yellow sketch in the corner.

In a later slide, he explains the Sankara-bharanam raga, uses a piano keyboard layout to show the various svaras of the Sankarabhranam raga. He compares them to other forms of classical music, namely Ancient Greek, Western Classical, Hindustani, and Ancient Tamil. The yellow sketch in the corner gives a feel of continuity to this theme.

In a presentation on the Pallava cave temple in Rockfort, Tiruchi, he uses other similar sculptures to compare and contrast. The Gangadhara panel in Elephanta is used first, highlighting the position of descending Ganga, devoted Bhageeratha, coy Parvati, and various other Gods. The use of alternating colors in the text and faded background sculpture are typical. The text here is simple and descriptive.

Whereas, the text in this slide is concise and very informative. You are informed that this is the earliest Gangadhara in Tamilnadu. The composition is described as a puzzle. The further slides explain the puzzle.

Another aspect is the effort he takes in preparing very illustrative slides. Take this from Oral Tradition of Sanskrit. The title alone should pique one's curiosity. But the presentation here is well thought out. First the sloka; then the individual letters of the sloka, grouped by verse; then syllables with the letters L & H showing which is Light (laghu) and which is Heavy (guru). This technique brilliantly illustrates the intricacy of candas, i.e. metres of Vedic poems.

From his Story of Scripts, the first series I had the pleasure of attending in 2008, this slide introduces Brahmi and Kharoshti, the two oldest known scripts of Sanskrit. Here he uses a story telling technique: foreshadowing. The gold coin in the upper right corner contains a Kharoshti inscription. The entire border of the slide on all four sides are filled with segments of Brahmi script. Note again the brilliant use of space. The text is sparse and powerful.

As a final example, consider this one. The Brahmi border continues. The background subtly shows the showcased script. The vattezhuthu, which is unfamiliar to most people, is shown letter by letter, with the modern Tamil and Roman characters in corresponding places.

I have merely used the slides in a demonstrative manner. They are best seen and understood, in proper context. Two of his masterpieces are the presentations on Mamallapuram and Ajanta. I have included the PowerShow links to his presentations, but you can login to GMail with UserID: mamallaiPassword : swaminathanto download his PPTs.Email him at sswami99@gmail.com for more information. Or regularly attend our programs. Best of all, catch him in person: this week (November 2014), he will be presenting a lecture on Pudukottai monuments, at 4pm at Tamil Virtual Academy, Kotturpuram, Chennai.Links to Prof Swaminathan's Powerpoints